Session Locations · North Andover, MA
Stevens-Coolidge Family Photographer
Ninety-one acres of Colonial Revival estate — a walled rose garden, a serpentine brick wall, and gate piers that frame a family without any help from me.
This is the most formal ground on my list. Helen Stevens Coolidge spent forty years turning an eighteenth-century farm into a designed garden, and what she left behind is architecture you can stand a family inside: brick walls, cut stone piers, clipped hedges, a long path under old maples. It is also the one location that genuinely needs a permit bought in advance, and the one where the dog stays home. This page covers all of it — the gardens, the paperwork, the hours, and when to come.
Stevens-Coolidge at a glance
Everything you need before booking a session here.
- Where we meet
- 153 Chickering RoadStevens-Coolidge House & Gardens · North Andover, MA 01845
- From the studio
- About 30 minutesChelmsford to North Andover, east on Route 133
- Permit
- Required, and paidOne of the Trustees properties where a portrait permit must be purchased
- Membership
- Household levelThe photographer or the client has to be a Trustees member to buy that permit
- Mini sessions
- Not permittedThe Trustees allow none at any of their properties, by anyone
- Gardens
- Free to enter91 acres · the gardens cost nothing; the permit is separate
- Dogs
- Not allowedThe only location on my list where the dog genuinely cannot come
- Accessibility
- GoodAccessible parking, pathways and restrooms · wheelchairs available on site
Why this location
A garden built to frame things.
Most of my locations are landscape. This one is architecture: walls, piers, hedges and axes, laid out by a woman who spent four decades getting them right. What that means in practice is that a family does not have to be posed into a composition here, because the garden has already made one — you walk them to the gate and stop. It is the shortest distance between arriving and having something on the wall, and it is the reason this location is worth the permit. We pick which parts we use during your Design Consultation.
The Gates and Stone Piers
Tall cut-stone piers topped with urns, opening onto the long path. The single best frame on the property and the one I use first — it holds a family of five as easily as one child, and it looks like nowhere else north of Boston.
The Walled Rose Garden
Helen Coolidge's rose garden, inside its own brick wall. Enclosed, quiet and completely out of the wind, which matters more in late October than anyone expects.
The Serpentine Wall and the Potager
A curving brick wall around a French vegetable garden — a Jefferson idea, which is less of a coincidence than it sounds. Warm brick, straight beds and a wall that leads the eye instead of blocking it.
The House and its Doorstep
White clapboard, rough stone steps and old shrubs right up against the sill. The most domestic corner of the property and the easiest one with small children, because there is somewhere to sit.
The work
One afternoon in the gardens.
A single family session, photographed here on an October afternoon and shown the way it ran — the path under the maples, the gate piers, the wall, and the doorstep of the house. One session rather than a mixed sample, because that is honestly what I have here and because it shows you what a booking actually produces.
A family session
The path · the gates · the garden wall · the house
One session, one October afternoon. Every frame on this page was made at Stevens-Coolidge House & Gardens.
A little history
A farm that a marriage turned into a garden.
The Stevens family were one of the founding families of North Andover. They took on Ashdale Farm in 1729 and worked the land for generations. Helen Stevens inherited it, married John Gardner Coolidge — a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and a nephew of Isabella Stewart Gardner — and from about 1914 the two of them spent decades turning a working farm into a summer estate.
In 1918 they brought in the preservation architect Joseph Everett Chandler, who remodeled what had been two connected farmhouses into the Colonial Revival house standing there now. Helen and Chandler laid out the gardens together: the walled rose garden, the greenhouses, the potager, and the curving serpentine brick wall — the Jefferson connection showing, whether or not anyone meant it to. Helen died in 1962 and left the whole ninety-one acres to the Trustees. You are photographing inside forty years of one woman's work.
- Ashdale Farm from 1729
- House remodeled 1918
- Left to the Trustees, 1962
- 91 acres
Planning your session
Six things worth knowing before the day.
The permit is real and it is bought, not asked for
Stevens-Coolidge is a Trustees of Reservations property and one of the short list where a portrait session permit has to be purchased. On top of that, the Trustees require the photographer or the client to hold a Household level membership before that permit can be bought at all. It goes in hand before the date is confirmed. This is the one location on my list with genuine paperwork.
Mini sessions are not allowed, by anyone
The Trustees do not permit mini sessions or wedding photography at any of their properties, full stop. So a session here is a full commissioned portrait session or it is somewhere else — and if you have seen fifteen-minute fall minis advertised in these gardens, they are being run against the rules of the place.
Leave the dog at home
The Trustees are direct about it: dogs are not allowed at Stevens-Coolidge. This is the only location on my list where that is true, so if the dog is part of the family portrait we book Chelmsford or Great Brook Farm instead and nobody is disappointed at the gate.
Check the season before you fall in love with a date
The Trustees publish garden hours of 10am to 4pm daily from mid-May to late September. Those are not golden-hour times, and they do not cover October — which is when the maples over the path do the thing that makes this place worth photographing. Tell me your date early and I will confirm access for it rather than assume.
The gardens are free; the permit is the cost
Walking the gardens costs nothing. House tours are separate and priced separately. The only money attached to photographing here is the permit and the membership behind it, and that sits with the session rather than with you at the gate.
Dress for architecture, not for a field
Brick, cut stone, clipped green and white clapboard. Deep jewel tones sit beautifully against all of it — the family on this page is in forest green and navy plaid and it is not an accident. Pale neutrals wash out against the stone. You get a wardrobe guide after booking, and for this location I will be more specific than usual.
Questions about Stevens-Coolidge
Before you book.
Do you need a permit for family photos at Stevens-Coolidge?
Yes, and it has to be purchased. Stevens-Coolidge House & Gardens is owned by the Trustees of Reservations, and it is on the short list of their properties where a portrait session permit must be bought rather than simply requested. The Trustees also require that the photographer or the client hold a Household level Trustees membership before that permit can be purchased. The gardens themselves are free to walk; the permit is separate, and it is arranged before your date is confirmed.
Can we book a mini session there?
No, and not with anyone. The Trustees do not permit mini sessions or wedding photography at any of their properties. A session at Stevens-Coolidge is a full commissioned portrait session. If a short seasonal session is what you want, we do it somewhere that allows it.
Can we bring our dog?
No. The Trustees state plainly that dogs are not allowed at Stevens-Coolidge House & Gardens. It is the only location I photograph at where that is the case. If your dog is part of the family portrait, Bartlett Park in Chelmsford and Great Brook Farm both welcome them.
When are the gardens open?
The Trustees publish garden hours of 10am to 4pm daily, mid-May through late September, with the house open on weekends in the same window. Those hours are worth checking against your date before anything else, because they do not include the autumn weeks when the maples over the long path are at their best. Raise your date with me early and I will confirm access for it.
What does it cost to visit?
The gardens are free to all, outside of special events. House tours are separate: self-guided admission is free for Trustees members and North Andover residents and $5 for other visitors, and guided tours are $12 for members, $20 for non-members and $10 for children twelve and under. None of that is the photography permit, which is bought separately.
Is it accessible for strollers, grandparents or a wheelchair?
Better than most of my locations. The Trustees list accessible parking, accessible pathways and accessible restrooms, ramps and railings at the house entrance, and wheelchairs available on site. The garden paths are firm and largely level. Tell me who I am planning around and the route gets built for them.
What should we wear?
Deep tones. This is brick, cut stone, clipped hedge and white clapboard, and jewel colors — forest green, navy, burgundy, charcoal — sit against that far better than pale neutrals, which tend to disappear into the stone. The family on this page is in green and navy plaid, and that was planned. You receive a wardrobe guide after booking.
What is the investment for a session here?
Portrait commissions begin at $1,450. Most families invest between $1,500 and $4,000 depending on the artwork selected. Every commission results in finished wall art or an album — digital-file-only packages are not offered. Request the full experience guide for pricing detail.
How far is North Andover from Chelmsford?
About half an hour, east on Route 133. It is a straightforward drive for families in North Andover, Andover, Boxford, Middleton, Haverhill, Lawrence, Tewksbury and Chelmsford.
Other session locations
Stevens-Coolidge is one of several.
Bird Park
The other Trustees property on the list — same permit, same membership, but eighty-nine acres of meadow and stone bridges instead of formal garden. Dogs welcome there.
Salisbury, MASalisbury Beach
Twenty-five minutes further up I-495. Open Atlantic and salt marsh, no permit, and the easiest place on the list to bring a dog.
Chelmsford, MAChelmsford
Where the studio is. Four locations inside ten minutes, no permit anywhere, and a rain plan that is a ten-minute drive away.
Limited sessions each season
The permit has to be in hand before the date is.
Which means Stevens-Coolidge is booked further ahead than anywhere else on my list, and the autumn afternoons go first. Serving families across North Andover, Andover, Boxford, Middleton, Haverhill, Lawrence, Tewksbury and Chelmsford, Massachusetts.